Just Breathe
by sweet-and-simple
Summary: He's a few hundred miles away, staring into the rearview mirror where someone who looks suspiciously like him is smeared with blood, listening to his salvation breathe... and, really?  That is all he needs to escape the darkness. 8059 no actual pairings


There is definitely something beautiful in destruction…

He can't quite put his finger on it, but he's sure it ha something to do with… well, _something_. Maybe how his target suffers the worst case of karma plus some irony as he begs for his life (where he had stolen so many lives and destroyed many others in his own free time)?

Perhaps he just really likes the color red.

No matter the answer, he takes a momentary pleasure in his job, humming a little tune beneath his breath as his target spasms periodically before falling peacefully still on the ground. As a second thought, he swipes a hand across his face, only succeeding in smudging the splotch of blood there; he deems it a great accomplishment nonetheless, considering how the rest of him looks.

Well, he _had_ had to fight his way to his target, hadn't he? And he really is a messy man.

He whistles to himself as he saunters out of the bedroom, down three flights of stairs, and then across the hall back towards the front door – the same door he had entered through earlier, much to the chagrin and then horror of the guards.

He shuts the door chivalrously behind himself, calling out a cheery goodbye to the now-deceased inhabitants.

Despite having had only one target, that doesn't mean only one person has to die, right?

He agrees contently with himself as he continues his way past one mutilated outpost and then through the shattered iron and block that had once made up the entrance gate.

Once he is two miles away from the area and back in his sleek black car, however, his smile begins to disappear.

He looks in the rearview mirror. There is a red tint to his eyes, as if the fallen blood had been reflecting off of his pupils. As he watches, the red tint dulls in its glow… dulls a little more…

And then he has to look away because he can't see the glass. Not through the rain; which abruptly begins to occur inside and outside the car.

Strangely enough, the rain inside the car only dampens his cheeks and blurs his vision. Wiping the odd rain away with the back of his hand, he peers back into the rearview mirror with weariness.

He's afraid of who he will see. And what he sees is actually worse than he had thought could be. Because staring back at him is _him_… with blood smeared across one cheek and a yet-to-die grin that did not in any way reflect his inner turmoil.

He looks down, wanting to escape that part of him. His clothes are stained scarlet. So is his katana, which rests bloodily in the passenger seat.

He reaches for his cell phone; he isn't going to make it out of there if he drives in his current condition. And… really?

He needs somebody to save him.

**~ iIi iIi ~**

When his phone goes off, it's four in the morning… _four_ in the _fucking_ morning.

Did he mention that he _just_ got to bed an hour ago? Between that meeting with the Giglio, helping the Tenth sort out his files (so many endless piles of work…), and training with his weapons, he is _tired_.

For the first seven rings, he ignores the damn piece of fail technology. And then, with a startled yelp, he realizes that… it could be Tenth.

He grabs it and presses it to his ear without thinking, the 'talk' button already pressed. "What do you need?" If he needs coffee, he'll get two cups so that they can stay up together. If it's a shotgun, he'll load the entire barrel so that they can shoot at everything _but_ the Tenth.

It turns out to be neither.

_"G-… Gokudera?" _Yamamoto's voice is a husky whisper on the other end. Almost heartbroken and definitely fragile.

Hayato freezes up. It's not a tone he's used to, really; especially from Yamamoto.

And then the surprise wears off and he again remembers that it is _four_ in the _fucking_ morning.

"What the hell do you want?"

A fake laugh answers him. _"Just wandering what you're up to."_

"I _was_ up to sleeping. But now that you've woken me up, I'm tempted to track your ass and shoot you to hell and back."

The silence that follows his words almost seems… _thoughtful_; as if Yamamoto is considering the possibility of his words.

And then another laugh, this one a little less fake. _"Sorry for waking you up, Gokudera. I just – … I just thought that now would be a great time to call!"_

"You're in _Darwin, Australia_…" Gokudera can't help but snarl into the mouthpiece. "You are seven hours _ahead_ of us, how the _hell_ did you think it was a great time to call?"

A calculative hush. _"It's that early, huh?" _

"Yes, it's _that_ early… Now hang up and go back to whatever you were doing." He rolls his eyes; what a baby. The Tenth sends him out on a simple scouting mission and he can't handle it.

Alright, so the scouting mission consists of a family who has the devil's blood running in their veins… but, really? It isn't like the Tenth would have _Yamamoto_ of all people _do_ something about them except try to talk them out of their evil ways...

It isn't like the baseball idiot is capable of much else, though he knows that Yamamoto is actually very strong in his own right.

"_No…"_

"No, what?"

"_I can't go back to whatever I was doing…" _Yamamoto's voice grows hoarse towards the end. _"I don't want to be him, Gokudera… I don't want to be the man in the mirror again…"_

Officially awake (and creeped out), he sits up in his bed and clutches the phone a little tighter to his ear. "Yamamoto," he begins in a strong, authoritative tone, "what are you talking about?"

Another laugh. _"The man in the mirror, Gokudera… He scares me sometimes."_

Gokudera waits for more, but it doesn't come. "… Why does he scare you?"

"… _Because he's always covered in red. Y'know, Gokudera, I really don't think I like the color red." _A softer, realer chuckle. _"Y'know what? I think I like white best… maybe green for a close second."_

He wants to tell Yamamoto to get back on the subject at hand; yet… he knows that evasion tactic; he isn't going to get another word out of the other man about 'man in the mirror'. So he follows along, not willing to hang up or give in. "Why those colors?" Maybe they can circle back to the mirror problem…

"_Hah hah! You don't know? White is the color of Gokudera's hair and skin; it makes Gokudera look really innocent, beautiful, and flawless… and, at the same time, Gokudera's spitfire green eyes are like getting burned by fire… except it's a good kind of fire – it's a fire without red." _

He is _not_ blushing. He is _26 years old_ for shit's sake… Nonetheless, his ears turn pink. "I'm going to hang up on you now."

"_No! Please, no… I'll stop talking." _He sounds so desperate, Gokudera feels his heart trip in his ribcage. _"I'll stop talking; you don't have to say anything! You can even go back to sleep, but, Gokudera…" _

A moment went by… another moment… and then he begins counting by seconds, still waiting.

When his patience wears thin with the silence, he growls into the phone. "What?"

"_Please… just let me hear you breathe? Just let me know that you're alive." _

He is struck stupid by the request.

What the hell is happening in Australia right now?

Yet he gives in and holds the phone against his ear with his lips to the mouthpiece. He has nothing to say, so he keeps his mouth shut. Yamamoto sticks to his word and doesn't break the peace.

Gokudera's eyelids began to weigh down like cinderblocks. Yamamoto _did_ tell him that he could fall back to sleep…

When he wakes up, his phone battery is dead. Eight hours later, Takeshi walks through the front doors, looking tired and haggard.

He kisses Gokudera's knuckles, as if he is his god, his lord, his _something_ indescribably loved. And he grins cockily in that overly familiar matter.

In a low voice, he murmurs, "I'm home."

In a snotty retort, he snaps in return, "why couldn't you have gotten lost on your way here?"

But Yamamoto just smiles and says, "because I will always find my way back home from out of the darkness." He directs a pointed look at Gokudera. "Especially with you leading the way."

Though he's sure Yamamoto isn't referring to the car and then plane (and then car again) ride he had been through to come back to HQ, he lets the subject drop.

Because, in the next moment where he hits Yamamoto upside the head for being an idiot, his laughter is real.


End file.
